Turkey is gripped by some of the country's worst political uprising in years with protests continue since the end of May. Five people have been killed, thousands injured and scores arrested while Ankara is criticized for its crackdown on the protests.
17:29 GMT: Turkish police have cleared Istiklal Avenue, firing water cannon and tear gas at hundreds of protesters as they gathered to march to Gezi Park. The park has been a cradle of anti-government unrest for weeks.
Demonstrators have been protesting against a recently
imposed law which blocked the authority of the Union of Chambers
of Turkish Engineers and Architects (TMMOB) from approving urban
planning projects. They gathered at Istiklal Avenue to march to
Gezi Park, which is located a short walking distance away.
18:51 GMT: Around 50 people who were detained because of the Gezi park protests in Istanbul began a hunger strike on Wednesday, as prosecutors extended their detention period and the death toll from the Gezi Park incidents rose to five, Turkish media reported.
The move by prosecutors was met with strong public reaction, with the Taksim Solidarity Platform and other human rights organizations and unions calling for the detainees’ immediate release, Radikal, a Turkish daily, reported.
16:41 GMT: Turkish police used water cannon and tear gas to disperse protesters who tried to defy a closure order and enter Istanbul’s Gezi Park.

15:21 GMT: A Turkish Court has cancelled plans to redevelop Taksim Square, according to court ruling from early June obtained by Reuters. The authorities planned to turn the park into a monument to the Ottoman Empire, which sparked mass protests last month.
The court ruled in early June during the height of the unrest that the government’s plan to rebuild the square broke preservation rules, that it spoiled the square’s identity and broke other regulations, according to a lawyer for the plaintiffs.

15:05 GMT: Kurdish protesters entered violent clashes with security forces in the southeastern province of Sirnak, burning tires and closing off a main road in the Cizre district. Some lobbed firebombs at police forces who tried to suppress the gathering by deploying water cannons and tear gas against the protesters. The demonstrators had been rallying against the killing of an 18 year old by police on Friday.
22:30 GMT: Anti-government protesters rallied in Istanbul's Taksim Square on Saturday
night, incorporating solidarity with Friday's Kurdish protester
casualties into their agenda. The demonstration was dispersed
after a couple of hours following a police warning, as law
enforcement used shields to push the crowd away from the square.
Water cannon trucks were also present but no water was
fired.
11:00 GMT: Police killed an 18 year old Kurdish protester
in in southeastern Turkey and wounded at least 10 others as they
fired on a group of around 250 people that was protesting the
construction of a gendarmerie outpost in the Lice district
of Diyarbakir province.
11:00 GMT: Turkish police have detained 20 people in a
series of raids throughout the capital Ankara for their alleged
involvement in weeks of anti-government protests. Some 30
addresses in total were targeted, with those detained allegedly
being members of an unspecified “terrorist” organization, CNNTurk
reports. Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan had previously charged
that protesters in the nationwide demonstration were being
manipulated by “terrorists.” The operations were reportedly
conducted against individuals who had attacked police officers,
business and public property. A police spokesperson in the
capital was unable to provide any further information on the
raids.
2:06 GMT: Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has decried the protester movement during a pro-government rally on Sunday night. He defended the actions of riot police who dispersed protesters on Saturday with water cannons and applauded his supporters for opposing a so-called “plot” against Turkey.
"The people saw this game from the start and frustrated it. They (the protesters) thought the people would say nothing. They said we will burn and destroy and do what we want but the people will do nothing," he said.
15:20 GMT: Approximately 2.5 million people have taken to the streets across Turkey since May 31, when a harsh police crackdown against activist’s in Istanbul’s Gezi Park prompted mass nationwide anti-government protests, Hurriyet cites a report by the country’s Interior Ministry as saying.
Major protests were seen in 79 cities, with a majority of the
demonstrations taking place in Ankara and Istanbul. Five people
have reportedly been killed and around 4,000 injured – including
600 police officers – since the unrest began. Around 4,900
protesters have been detained. The report further says that some
58 public buildings and 337 private businesses were damaged,
while 240 police vehicles, 214 private cars, 90 municipal buses
and 45 ambulances were left unusable. The total damages are
estimated in excess of $72 million.
12:10 GMT:
In memory for those who died during Gezi Park protests.. 4 people, 4 lives. #occupygezi #occupyturkey pic.twitter.com/ARuha54Mll
— Stun (@57UN) June 21, 2013
11:44 GMT: Fifteen protesters were detained after attempting to break through a police cordon to enter Taksim Square on Saturday. The detainees were taken to taken to a police station in Istanbul’s Fatih district for questioning, Sunday’s Zaman reports.
19:30 GMT: Reports of rubber bullets being fired to
disperse protesters have emerged. Local channel Artibir tv has
shown a live broadcast of police wielding guns.
Police have been shooting people with paint-balls to mark their
potential detainees.
Turkish +1 channel shows police load rubber bullets getting ready to fire #taksim #occupygezi
— Irem Koker (@ikoker) June 22, 2013
Police using paintball guns in #Taksim intervention to mark people to detain: pic.twitter.com/QTaqLNiOQB #direntaksim #çapulcularaksime
— Ozzie (@ozziewashere) June 22, 2013
19:15 GMT: The usage of teargas on protesters has been
confirmed in Istiklal Street, a road just off Taksim
Square. Media crews are beginning to make their way through the
streets wearing gas masks.
Gazı göstermiyormuş TV'ler. Bu fotoğraf iyi değil ama 21.52 pic.twitter.com/pB2gDl1fA2
— Sinan Cakmak - ATLAS (@sinanchakmak) June 22, 2013
Polisin İstiklal'in ara sokaklarına attığı gazdan çocuklar da etkileniyor. Hava karardı, gaz geldi. 21.54 pic.twitter.com/iGlsEHj9Ow
— Sinan Cakmak - ATLAS (@sinanchakmak) June 22, 2013
"The police has taken the side street, Istiklal.
Children have been affected by the gas. It's dark, the gas
came."
18:55 GMT: A handful of reports on Twitter suggest the police
have been unleashing clouds of teargas.
İşte şerefsizliğin fotoğrafı. Sokaktaki masalarda yemek yiyen insanlar vardı 30 saniye önce! pic.twitter.com/LZCyI9vBia
— Engin Süzen (@castrobey) June 22, 2013
"There were people on the street for 30 seconds before
eating at the tables!"
It is claimed that the photograph was taken on Istiklal
Street, just off Taksim Square.
18:45 GMT: No political messages or banners have been wielded
during the protest - only Taksim Platform banners and the
national flag. The crowd had also been condemning the park's
closure, chanting "open park, belonging to the public,"
according to Hurriyet.
18:30 GMT:
Now back to Taksim Sq. TOMA again attacking w/pressured water. A cop hit this guy, fell and waiting for ambulance pic.twitter.com/QsCOUdqhqn
— ilhan tanir (@WashingtonPoint) June 22, 2013
18:20 GMT: The water cannon fired a few short bursts at a
cluster of remaining protesters.The surrounding crowd started
booing them. Some shouting and minor scuffles between individual
police and protesters shortly followed.
Some groups of people have been shouting "where is the
shampoo?" in response to the water cannon attacks.
18:00 GMT: Remaining people in the area are continuing to
chant, undeterred by the unleashing of water cannons less than
half an hour ago.
Well, looks like the police attacked what had been a completely peaceful, unremarkable protest.
— Claire Berlinski (@ClaireBerlinski) June 22, 2013
17:45 GMT: Police deployed the water cannon down a narrow
side street into a dense crowd.

17:39 GMT: The square is drenched and almost empty but crowds
linger in the surrounding streets.
Protesters had been throwing red carnations to police officers in
an attempt to signify that they would like to keep the
demonstration peaceful.
Protesters had been laying the flowers down in memory of those
killed across the three weeks of anti-government action.
Only nine members of the Taksim Platform were allowed by
Istanbul's Governor Office to lay their flowers down in Gezi Park
itself, in memory of the three demonstrators and one policeman
who have died over the course of the protests.
17:35 GMT: Police have turned the water cannon on protesters
in Taksim square after attempting to disperse crowds by pushing
them away.
Taksim de polis kalabaligi dağıtmak üzere üzerine pic.twitter.com/hRPEE0CfII
— ilhan tanir (@WashingtonPoint) June 22, 2013
"On Taksim the police disperse crowds"
More water canons pulling into square now! #taksim
— Ceylan Yeginsu (@CeylanWrites) June 22, 2013
17:30 GMT: The police and a water cannon vehicle are both
closing in on protesters, with some struggles between individual
protesters and the wall of police shields.
17:25 GMT:
Breaking: I see people putting on gas masks. This must mean something! pic.twitter.com/WpdFhGh54e
— ilhan tanir (@WashingtonPoint) June 22, 2013
16:55 GMT: Riot police are moving in on the demonstrators,
greeted by a wave of loud boos from the crowd, who still vastly
outnumber them.
"Pepper gas ole," the crowd chant.
16:45 GMT: Eyewitnesses report that people are chanting
"this is only the beginning of our struggle,” as they
gather in the square. Water cannons and armored vehicles are on
standby, with a heavy police presence also identifiable.
16:18 GMT: Hundreds of people have gathered in Istanbul’s
Taksim Square. Riot police are on standby.
15:25 GMT:
GeziPark is closed to people, cordoned with police. Taksim #gezipark pic.twitter.com/ynXOJm2dwd
— ilhan tanir (@WashingtonPoint) June 22, 2013
14:50 GMT: Erdogan is giving a speech on the Gezi Park
protests, commenting that "the recent protests have from the
beginning been carried out with malicious intentions," and
accusing protesters of publishing fabricated news, "trampling
on justice," and being "pawns" in a dirty game,
Anadolu Agency reports.
"It is a betrayal to show Turkish police as pro-violence in
the international media," he said. Erdogan identified both
winners and losers emerging from the protests, conceding that
"Turkey's economy, tourism, as well as its international image
and influence" had suffered as a result. He added that
"Turkey's enemies" were the winners.
"Nobody but God will have the power to overthrow our
government," Erdogan claimed.
He went on to declare that the protests in Turkey and
Brazil were essentially the same
thing.
"It was the same game being played on
Brazil, and same symbols, same banners, and the same
international media. They are doing their best to achieve in
Brazil what they could not achieve in Turkey," he said.
12:00 GMT: A demonstration has been scheduled for 7 p.m.
Saturday (local time) in Taksim Square, with other discussion
forums being held across Istanbul's parks. Plans are also in
place to lay carnations down.
Some non-confrontational methods of objection to the government
have been attempted over the past few days, such as standing
completely still.
11:15 GMT: 31 people were arrested across Ankara and
Istanbul over the protests in the early hours of Saturday,
bringing the total number to 55. The demonstrators stood accused
of organizing demostrations and provoking violence during clashes
with police. A small group assembled outside court to protest
against the prosecution of people who had participated in the
protests.
Clashes broke out again late on Friday night close to the US
embassy in Ankara. Police deployed tear gas and watter cannons
against protesters who had been making a blockade on the road.
One protester reportedly passed out as a result of the gassing,
according to Hürriyet.
11:00 GMT: PM Erdogan's chief adviser has accused the Peace
and Democracy Party (BDP) and the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK)
of being opportunistic and taking advantage of the Gezi Park
protests to further their own political agenda. "They intend
to put the government under pressure in order to obtain
benefits," Yalçın Akdoğan wrote in his Daily Star column,
going on to comment that the BPD is ignoring the fact that the
Gezi Park protesters are supposedly "staunchly against the
process." The beginning of the second round of talks was
announced on Friday. The PKK withdrew militants from Turkish soil
on May 8. However, suspicions rose on Friday when a Turkish
helicopter was shot at by terrorists in the south east of the
country.
14:00 GMT: Erdogan said at the AKP rally that "Taksim
Square is not a place for demonstrations. Gezi Park is not the
property of occupying groups." He went on to accuse
protesters of using Gezi Park as a pretext to destroy Turkey's
economy and democracy, according to Turkey's Anadolu Agency.
12:30 GMT: Turkish PM Erdogan has addressed AKP supporters,
saying that he knew the people were against protesters using
violence. "Today, Anatolia and Thrace are joining together.
[They] are rebelling against vandalism and barbarism," he
said, according to Hürriyet. "Your riot is against rebels
who use violence."
12:00 GMT: Two Turkish channels have been fined for airing
bad language while live-streaming protests in Istanbul, according
to Hürriyet daily news. Ulusal TV and Beyaz TV were fined over
11,000 Lira each for live interviews where the speaker used
offensive words, with one telling Erdogan to "**** off."
11:30 GMT: Germany has summoned the Turkish ambassador to
complain about a government minister who criticized Chancellor
Angela Merkel after she said she was appalled at the Turkish
police's overly harsh treatment of protesters.
"If Mrs. Merkel looks into it, she will see that those who
mess around with Turkey do not have an auspicious end,"
Turkey's minister for relations with the European Union, Egemen
Bağış said Thursday. The response was described as
"unacceptable" by a German Foreign Ministry spokesperson,
according to Reuters.
Turkey is in talks over European Union membership, and Germany
has blocked the next step in light of the country's approach to
dealing with the unrest.
11:00 GMT The 'Occupy Gezi' protests have cost Istanbul a
reported €54.7 million in tourism, with over 215,000 reservations
canceled between May 31 and June across 298 hotels in the city.
Requests for future bookings have also fallen by an average of 55
percent.
02:55 GMT: In the third week of protests, the Turkish
government is applying preventative measures to quell public
discontent. Heavy law enforcement presence is seen in Turkey as
police trucks use water cannons and tear gas before clusters of
protests gain the momentum.
“The police are trying to screw down the pressure on these
protesters,” RT’s Tom Barton reported from the scene in
Ankara, adding that the police have stopped crowds from forming
as “trucks with water cannons charged up the street”
spraying protesters. “A real liberal use of water canon there,
stripping the bark of trees, leaving debris scattered in the
roads,” Barton noted.
As patches of protesters fled to side streets, “a lot of gas
use” was applied to disperse the activists. Barton explained
that water canon vehicles “can also squirt tear gas from the
sides of the truck.”
“Any protester approaching it gets a blast of this stuff in his
face,” Barton reported explaining that “all of this is
forcing the protestors onto the side streets” as police also
“fired gas canisters.”
Barton says this has further enraged the protesters as
“evidence of heavy tactics by the police force that they
criticize for protecting Prime Minister’s Erdogan authoritarian
government.”
19:00 GMT:
Video:
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15:30 GMT: Police raided tents set up in Izmir's Gündoğdu
Square in support of the Gezi Park protests. Around 30 of the
demonstrators who had been camping were detained by police after
they began to fight back against the forced removal of their
tents. The confrontation followed a previous attempt to converse
with the police.
A further 13 protesters have been detained in Turkey for alleged
vandalism, use of firebombs and inciting riots, according to the
Andalous News Agency.
09:10 GMT: Turkish police arrested more than 100 protesters
in the western city of Izmir during a demonstration and carried
out 15 house raids, local media reported on Thursday.
09:05 GMT: Police dispersed 5,000 demonstrators during overnight protests in the northern Turkish city of Eskisehir, Dogan news agency reported.
01:50 GMT: Turkish law enforcement
has fired water cannon to stop hundreds of protesters marching on
Ankara's streets against Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and
his ruling Justice and Development Party (AK).
“The police charged in here with two vehicles firing tear gas – everyone in this square chocking on that having to dive for cover” RT’s Tom Barton reported from the scene.
“The water canon blasting everything around left branches hanging off the trees, and debris, and water all over the streets,” Barton added.
RT’s correspondent said that the police launched a surprise assault on the protesters making them flee, “very shocked from the sudden onrush of these police vehicles.”
Earlier on Wednesday, thousands of activists flocked into Taksim Square in Istanbul as protesters held a candlelit vigil in Abbasaga Park for those killed during last week's clashes.
Video:
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